Installing the Webserver, Webhosting and VIMP on Debian 8 "Jessie" or Ubuntu 14

This article explains how to install the complete server software (Apache, MySQL, php5, php-cli, sendmail etc.) for VIMP and how to configure the webhosting.

If you´re using Debian 7 "Squeeze", please check this article

First we install some basic packages. Existing packages will be updated or ignored:

apt-get update
apt-get install apache2 php5 php5-gd php5-mysql mysql-server mysql-client php5-cli php5-mcrypt php5-xsl php5-curl php5-json  joe openssl time

We choose sendmail as MTA (Mail Transport Agent). Of course you can use another MTA like Postfix or Exim, too. In any case assure that the MTA is configured correctly, so that php can send mails.

apt-get update
apt-get install sendmail-bin sendmail

Apache Konfiguration:

We install VIMP into the "default"-hosting. The corresponding <VirtualHost>-Container was already created with the apache installation and we just customize it with an editor (e.g. joe):

joe /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        # for VIMP we change DocumentRoot:
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html/web
        # for VIMP we add the following 2 blocks:
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride None
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/html/web/>
                Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>
        # for VIMP no further changes are needed

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Create the new DocumentRoot directory and activate the apache module "rewrite":

mkdir /var/www/html/web
a2enmod rewrite

To reload the new configuration we restart apache2 later.

PHP configuration

There are 2 php.ini files that we have to consider. One for the Apache php module, another for the php-cli (cli=command line interface).

Let's start with the php.ini for the Apache module:

joe /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

Modify the following lines:

upload_max_filesize = 1024M   ; the maximum upload size
post_max_size = 1024M
register_argc_argv On
memory_limit = 512M

Save and restart Apache.

service apache2 restart

Then do the same for the php-cli php.ini. Apache doesn't have to be restarted in this case.

joe /etc/php5/cli/php.ini

Finally we deactivate the Zend-php-module opcache and activate mcrypt:

# php5dismod opcache
# php5enmod mcrypt
# service apache2 restart

Create database and database user

mysql -p
[mysql-root enter password]

The mysql client starts with the mysql> prompt

mysql> create database DATABASENAME default character set utf8 collate utf8_unicode_ci;
mysql> grant all privileges on DATABASENAME.* to 'DATABASEUSER'@'localhost' identified by 'PASSWORD';
mysql> flush privileges;
mysql> exit;

Uploading and Installing the VIMP package

Upload and installation of the VIMP installer is described here.

Basic usage

Now the installation is finished. Enter the URL of your portal in your web browser.

During installation three users with the corresponding user roles are created:

• "admin" (Password: "admin") as administrator
• "moderator" (Password: "moderator") as moderator
• "user" (Password: "user") as standard user

Change all passwords as soon as possible after installation. If you don't need a certain user you can delete him in the administration backend.